Was Maddow the First to Get the Weiner Story?

This entire story will come as no surprise, but must be mentioned as the media blasts Andrew Breitbart for breaking the #Weinergate story.

According to one of the women, MSNBC had first shot at it.

Lisa Weiss, a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, says she first approached MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to see if she would do the story about Anthony Weiner.

“Anthony was a regular guest on Rachel’s show and I love her, so much, and her views, so I reached out to her,” the blackjack dealer told RadarOnline.com.

“But I never heard back.”

Imagine that?

Weiss says she was one of the six (at least six) women who carried on with Weiner on the internet. She says they had been communicating on-line for nine months.

In their communications Weiner talked about how he wanted to come to Vegas and “kick a little gop ass.” He brags about his, uh, body parts and then their conversation gets as explicit as it can get.

No word on whether Maddow actually got the tip or if somebody on her staff got it and ignored it, or whether they even saw it at all. We’d love to find out. At this point, I would even give her credit for honesty if she admitted she got it and chose not to do the story. Somebody over there at MSNBC knows and it would be interesting to find out.

I’ve reached out to Maddow to try to get comment for this story. Still waiting word.

I don’t know if Maddow fancies herself a journalist, but I know that real journalists sometimes do stories they would rather not do. We try to not have preferences, but we are human and invariably we do. Still, if you are going to have any credibility, you have to suck it up and report on something, even though it may pain you inside to do it. You still do it.

Bless “Big Eddie” over there at MSNBC, he took a hard-line on Weiner and did it from day one. Perhaps it’s his local TV background, he’s a former TV news sports guy and I have a soft spot for TV news sports guys. Ed Schultz is to be commended for seeing this story as it is and calling for Weiner’s resignation. Now, his motivation is that a damaged Weiner (sorry) hurts the Democrat agenda, but this is a rare chance to compliment Ed, so I’ll do it.

This story is now much more than Anthony Weiner. It has become an indictment on the journalistic community. The networks were dragged kicking and screaming into this story. They waited to see if the New York Times thought it was a story, then they might tip their toe in. Initially they attacked the messenger, Andrew Breitbart.

Looking back, how much different this story may have played out had Maddow broken it? This would instead be a column giving kudos to Maddow for busting out of the normal political mode that we are used to seeing, and actually establishing credibility.